Hallicrafters, Heathkits and that lawn cutting.

[Fredric Newman]

Hallicrafters, Heathkits and that lawn cutting.  The first radio I built was
the Heath "lunchbox" CB when I was 13.  When I turned it on, all I received
was that low static sound.  When I transmitted, no one responded.  I called
Heath up in Benton Harbor for help.  The engineer asked me, "What antenna are
you using, son?".  I responded, "What do you mean, antenna????".
A Novice and General Class license later in the year staightened that out.
In the mid-60's I bought, brand new from Reno Radio on Broadway in Detroit, a
Hallicrafters SX-117 receiver, HT-44 transmitter (It runs slave with the 117
making them a xcvr) and the matching speaker/power supply.  That was a lot of
lawn cutting.  I still have the original receipt and the radios in mint
condition in original boxes.  I'll resurrect that combo later in the year.  I
wasn't super active on the air in the 70's, but when I upgraded my ticket and
got back into this amazing hobby with gusto in 1981, I found that the
American ham radio companies were dissappearing from the scene.  It was very
disappointing.  I ended up buying an Icom 720A, now also a relic stored away
in its original box.  In my early 60's ARRL handbook, it's all American gear
in the back section.  What happened?  I guess we all know.  I'm attached to
all of it, as well as to my two Willys army Jeeps, my 1938 Zenith art deco,
clam shell dial console radio with state-of-the-art motorized tuning and all
the other antique wireless receivers sitting out or packed away, my 50's gas
station Coke machines, Civil War memorabilia, oh, man, the list goes on and
on for this pack rat.  It's incurable.  And here I am at the end of the
millenium, 3,000 miles from home in Fredericksburg, Virgina, writing to all
of you on a notebook computer and listening to transoceanic SSB air traffic
control chatter from New York, Gander, the Azores and Shanwick, Ireland with
a Sony ICF-7600G and a reel antenna stretched across my hotel room.  This is
the life!!!!

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --
To subscribe: listserv at listserv.tempe.gov
and in body: subscribe HEATH yourfirstname yourlastname
To unsubscribe:  listserv at listserv.tempe.gov
and in body: signoff HEATH
Archives for HEATH: http://www.tempe.gov/archives
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --